D&D 5E Changing Range of Self to Touch

[ro]

I am working on a homebrew sorcerer or wizard subclass akin to the Lore Master or Inventor. One of the features of these and Metamagic is to extend the range of spells.

What would be an appropriate cost in sorcerery points or of spell slot to change a spell with a range of Self to Touch?

More information: Self spells range all the way from cantrips to 9th-level. Is there a fixed number that should work for all (e.g. spend a 3rd-level slot), or is there a level dependent cost (e.g. level minus 2, or slots adding up to level)?

While we're at it, what would be an appropriate cost for changing a spell's saving throw ability score?

 

[Croesus]

DISTANT SPELL
When you cast a spell that has a range of 5 feet or greater. you can spend 1 sorcery point to double the range of the spell.
When you cast a spell that has a range of touch, you can spend I sorcery point to make the range of the spell 30 feet.

In general, I'd treat it as just another feature of Distant Spell, so one sorcery point cost. Most Self spells wouldn't be game-breaking if they were Touch.

That said, some spells could be problematic. For example, contingency and invulnerability (from Xanathar's) could be abused. I'd probably allow all Self spells initially, then disallow any that become too cheesy in play.

 

[Croesus]

While we're at it, what would be an appropriate cost for changing a spell's saving throw ability score?

HEIGHTENED SPELL
When you cast a spell that forces a creature to make a saving throw to resist its effects, you can spend 3 sorcery points to give one target of the spell disadvantage on its first saving throw made against the spell.

I wouldn't allow it at all. We already have Heightened Spell that costs 3 sorcery points and gives the target disadvantage. Being able to pick the ability score is similar, but would be more easily abused, e.g., always choosing Intelligence when targeting animals. And it would impact all saves vs. the spell, not just the first one.

Besides, I just don't see how one convincingly explains why shatter or fireball suddenly target Int instead of Con and Dex respectively.

 

[Stalker0]

In my altered sorceror I did exactly this, made distant spell change self to touch.

It allows for some wizard only buffs to be put on another person, like blur or Tenser's Transformation. But most of those are concentration bound anyway so I never saw it as too bad.

You have to make a special notes for things liek the wish spell (even with range touch, I'm still the one casting the spell).

 

[5ekyu]

before i did the self-to-touch, i would review every single touch spell in the game for obvious issues.

One of the initial red flags i would have is handing off concentration spells to folks with con save proficiencies.

Altering the save - i would not consider because of how that affects the "what abilities mean" thing.

if i were going to consider it it might be a single "go to" as in creating psychic variants of fireball representing psychic assaults of some powerful form of illusion but even then it seems really out of whack power-wise. i would not go near any sort of "dial-a-sav-on-demand" type effect. that would be just too deadly and frankly result in a lot of wiped out PCs. it makes fighting uphill against more powerful casters a lot more deadly. just ask rogues how much they want to charge an enemy sorcerer to negate their evasion save for zero and 1/2 by turning fireballs into WIS saves or strength saves?

its really a "build" or "design" breaker to me and unless you plan to add ways for rogues to get sneak attacks that go around AC and a whole lot of other additions, i think these are quite dangerous areas to tred.